


let me entertain you

by Frostfyre



Series: thunderbolts and lightning [1]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon typical alcohol use, Definitely Not Them, F/M, Historical, M/M, Mythological, Other, are az & crow just too blind to notice them?, are the greek deities here?, butchering greek mythology but it's cool, i didn't fall short of a degree in classical cultures for NOTHING, more tags to be added as necessary, this is murder with intent, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 14:41:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19320247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frostfyre/pseuds/Frostfyre
Summary: Crowley has nothing to do with the apple at all this time, and in fact only learns that apples were involved at all about five thousand years later while watching an episode of Horrible Histories whilst waiting for Aziraphale to "finish just this one last chapter, my dear, then we'll go off lickety split!" for the second book in a row.Or: wherein Crowley starts the Trojan War, sort of, and Aziraphale ends it, sort of.Demons and angels who've been playing celestial 'will they / won't they' for the past thousand years oughtn't hand out romantic advice like candy.





	let me entertain you

Top of the hill was just _popping_ today.

Couple folks were getting married, Pele…magus or something and a lady named Felts, he hadn’t actually paid much of any attention beyond tracking down the source of that spicy red he’d tasted on the air a block away [1]. Getting through the gates proved exactly as challenging as he expected, which is to say not at all, and he was distracted from his hunt long enough to think, _Ritzy affair, huh,_ before catching sight of a Spartan king with a bullheaded rhyton [2] in hand ambling away from a brimming krater. And then, well. There were more important matters to attend to than a couple of mayflies promising to spend their remaining twelve hours together.

Three cups in with a rhyton that hadn’t been shaped like a snake this morning and wasn’t sure how it felt about its new form just yet, and steadily working through the fourth, Crowley is just shy of drunk enough to forget there was a party at all and simply spend the next hours happily basking, blood and belly warm from Grecian sunlight and wine whose alcohol content surprised no one more than it itself. Other attendants spare barely a glance at the random redhead currently sprawled on the best couch in the garden. Suited him fine. Interaction isn’t on the agenda, and the agenda has always quick on the uptake of what Crowley Was and Was Not in the mood for. Below hadn’t sent him any pressing assignment in the last year to tend to, except the usual overarching command of “spread discord and malaise” which he quite thought wedding crashing counted as. Getting smashed in the process was extra credit.

He swirls his cup, watching the tiny maelstrom of wine with all the hazy amusement of one whose brain is current swishing around in much the same manner. It was like that… that one thingie, beastie, the toothy-monster-faucet they believed ‘round here was mates with the soggy lady on the cliff. Charmin. Charmander. Charbroil?

“ _Celestial.”_

Crowley isn’t in the habit of blinking, even when it was especially dramatically appropriate. As such, his eyelids don’t even twitch as he rolls his head to the side. Sloshes his head. Or is that the drink?

A man too young to really warrant the term leans boneless against a pillar near Crowley’s head, limbs listless and lips parted softly with the wasting weakness of pure despondency and a lightweight who’s two cups past their limit. His chiton looks _fantastic_ with some kind of fancy gold filigree pattern at the edges which Crowley immediately nicks for his own clothes. It didn’t seem like he was really addressing Crowley, more like he was just speaking out to the world because his own mind was too sloshy to keep the words in the proper order without the structure of vocalization to prop them up.

_Paris,_ Crowley recognizes, in that intrinsic demonic fashion of _knowing_ someone down to the core of their essence, seeing them for the muck and grime that constitutes their sewage system of a soul[3]. Another one of those princes left on a mountain in lieu of a proper orphanage so some shepherd could scoop him up and take care of him during those annoying baby years before returning him back to his birth parents for those lethal teens. In his hands he clutches a rhyton shaped like a goat, which Crowley doesn’t have enough of a chance to snicker at because the boy’s still talking.

“In the sun her hair shines with the radiance of all Persephone’s jewels. Her eyes are the Aegean Sea.” Paris flutters his lashes, flirting with the chance of blinking. Crowley wonders vaguely what that’s like. “I could drown so happily in their depths.”

He could, if he wanted to. The capability is there, no matter what Hastur says.

“But for her faintest acknowledgement shall I perish. What man could pray for survival, when such sublime perfect walks the same earth…”

It’s just, you know, you don’t get a lot of practice blinking when your true blue default settings are lidless cold-blooded reptile.

“… fancy… mushy words… in iambic pentameter…”

Hastur’s a prat anyways.

“….?”

“Yes!” Crowley agrees emphatically, because the shape of the question felt like one to say yes to. Do _frogs_ blink, even? “Oh yes, absolutely on the nose there.”

“It _is,_ isn’t it?” sighs the princeling. An angel seeking virtue might call him _lovelorn,_ but the demon scenting vice is more inclined to attribute a different L-word here. “Like a kiss from Aphrodite herself.”

_Paris_ isn’t blinking either, rather he stared glassy-eyed across the garden towards where the VIPs were all loitering. Crowley traces the gaze to its terminus at the back of a lady. She’s turned around from them so he can’t judge her eyes or nose himself, but her hair _is_ quite shiny and her chiton was an absolutely _gorgeous_ shade of saffron that Crowley immediately copies. At her side is the Spartan king with the bull, who’s just an inch away from proper looming over her space. When he throws his head back in a laugh it booms as a thunderclap through the gardens, bright and loud like the very first Crowley heard atop the eastern gate, as he shuffled close to the angel out of -

Another long draught takes care of cup four, and the slow curl of his lip fills the rhyton quick with cup five.

“A-yup,” he says at last, because perhaps if he agrees enough the prince will wander off and drape himself onto a pillar _elsewhere._ “Got it in one.”

The only part of Paris which moves is his neck, as he rolls his head delicately to look at Crowley. And then keeps looking.

“Sir,” he says politely. Sheepishly. “Your eyes.”

For Hell’s sake. “Yesss.”

The princeling blinks like the bloody showoff he is. “They’re a bit…” He trails off in that pointed manner of those who would be so very relieved if you could do the awkward work of being rude to yourself for them, thank you very much.

“I’m from down south.” What was south of here? “Carthage.”

Paris nods as gravely as a man who knows well what being from Carthage does to a person[4]. His gaze slides like water off of a… something water slides off of, coming to a standstill once more on the lady’s back. He slouches further against the pillar, a marionette whose strings have been cut, a drunken idiot

“You should go say hello,” Crowley suggests, because while he’s _leagues_ better at getting with the times than certain **ethereal entities,** the complexities of patriarchy and socially acceptable avenues of mortal courtship are a bit too esoteric for even a man-shaped being of the world to fully comprehend. Particularly one whose mind is currently meandering down the corridor of the future, peaking through the doors of which tavern he ought to patron tonight while also weighing the pros and cons of crashing here tonight instead.

Paris isn’t the sage to break down those arcane customs to him, either, busy as he is gunning for the position of Patron Saint of Dejection. “She’s already married. To _him._ ”

And isn’t it _fascinating_ , how swiftly longing twists into a thing of teeth and venom, all caustic biting _jealousy_. Crowley flicks his tongue out, tastes the lemon zest of avarice on the air. It was to be a work night after all.

“Ah, well. Poor luck there.” Most humans, he’s learned these last couple centuries, respond very enthusiastically to challenges. Tell a child not to touch hot embers, and the moment you turn your back their hands are going to be wrist-deep in the coals for the heartbeat’s length of time between _oh, pretty_ and _AHH, HOT!!_ Humanity never really grows out of this developmental stage, just upgrades from touching hot coals to drinking milk from a cow or smushing reeds into papyrus. “Better luck next time.”

He can _see it_ take root, the temptation. Paris pushes off from the pillar. His shoulders square up. The hand holding his goat tightens into a white-knuckled grip more befitting a sword than a cup. There’s _intention_ burning in his eyes, little flickers of manmade hellfire that have Crowley drinking in self congratulation. Bleedin’ Ligur isn’t gonna be able to say a _thing_ at the next deeds of the day recollection, he can promise you that -

The princeling’s shoulders drop like a house of cards on fire. “It’s folly.”

Crowley frowns. Drinks disappointedly. “Doesn’t have to be.”

Paris’ smile is rust crawling across unused metal. “Pining is a coward’s pastime, sir, but otherwise is to court disaster.”

Unbidden, a thought germinates within the wine-soaked soil of Crowley’s mind like a marigold on caffeine, and he’s _just_ drunk enough that he’s unable to tamp back under the dirt before it manages to bloom. Soft petals unfurl into a memory: rain pattering on feathers overhead, the sensation of watching a streak of hot orange grow hazier with distance with _“I gave it away”_ playing on repeat in his head.

The thought has nettles. They scratch his skin when he gets too close, when he tries to bury it back underground like it never bloomed at all. The memory keeps replaying, the wing, the rain, the _“I gave it away”_ here you go, flaming sword, don’t thank me, Go- Satan, he’s too drunk for this but sobriety would be even _worse._

“Be rude, not to go and chat when you’re both attending this little _sssoiree_.“ The Spartan king booms, a thunderclap. Crowley flicks his tongue, tastes rain. The sun was starting to set and it’s going to be _cold_ out there. “What do they expect you to do, when you keep running into each other like thisss? If anyo- if any _-one_ has a, a _problem_ wit’ it back home, they can jussst - come up and take the job inssstead, sssee how they like it.”

The princeling’s eyes are downcast, brows furrowed in consideration or burgeoning nausea. Crowley throws back the last of his drink, but it doesn’t settle as warm in his belly as it had been before. More water than wine, he reckons. The hosts are probably skimping on the good stuff now that everyone’s a little too fuzzy to appreciate it[5].

He stands up, fully disinterested in the party, the shepherd prince, the blasted _wine._ Paris doesn’t move an inch, not even when someone across the gardens calls his name, just stares and stares and oh yes, he’s definitely battling nausea at this point. Crowley doesn’t stagger _nearly_ as much as he’d intended when he first arrived as he walks away. He hears some snippet of noise from Paris, something about a contest, but then he’s out the door, as unnoticed in his exit as he’d been in his arrival. Within the hour, he’s holed up in some tavern quite far down the lane, working through cups of house brown which keeps discovering themselves to be a hard Cretan red at heart. Before night’s end, he’s completely forgotten about the shepherd prince and that bright kindle of _wonder_ he’d felt atop the eastern gate, when the invention of rain paled before the sheer miraculous existence of an angel who was _kind._

 

* * *

 

Here’s the thing.

Or — rather. Back at the party is the thing.

A Great War ( _great_ in terms of size, scope, and carnage, rather than any indication of likeability ) breaks out every few centuries or so, give or take a decade, the culmination of one too many logs added to the fire under that endless simmering pot of human folly, bloodthirst, meanness, and nostalgia, amping the heat up just enough to bring the soup to a roiling frothy boil. The precise makeup of that soup, parts bloodthirst to parts nostalgia, the name of the chefs stirring it and their reasons for taking up the ladle, differ with each iteration. No two meals are ever quite the same, even when following the same recipe. Thus, the resultant flavor of mass death, famine, pestilence, and soul-draining empty horror at the sheer mindless scale of the carnage always differs just enough that the diners will throw their napkins on the table and exclaim that they shall _never again!!!_ partake of this stew, that’s it, peace and harmony and salads from here on out, before coming back a week later to queue up for the next batch as though the taste isn’t still sticky in the back of their throats.

Into most kitchens eventually slithers a snake. He never takes up a ladle himself, but he does exclaim quite loudly upon finding the salt shaker in the back of the cupboard that no one else ever found. Not because of his keen awareness that salt hastens the boil and flavors the carnage, but because oh look! Salt! Isn’t that nice. Then he ambles onwards to fetch a couple snackies as was his original intention.

Below chalks up his proximity to competency and diligence, and as such provide him with the numerous accolades and accords due to his cunning and wiles[6]. Aziraphale harbors that suspicion as well for the first time or two[7], but eventually realizes the honest truth.

What is to come is no more Crowley’s fault than a tornado may be blamed upon the flap of a butterfly’s wings five hundred miles to the east, because _honestly,_ if all it took was that breathless disruption of air to unleash merry swirling hell upon the landscape and damn some sepia farmgirl to a technicolor acid trip with a furry, a fire hazard, and someone’s robotsona, then maybe it’s all well and good that we just got the whole business over with and addressed the legal matter of ruby slipper inheritance in instances of involuntary witchslaughter already. Not the butterfly’s fault it stirred up a few hundred years of family tragedy and warriors chomping at the bit for a chance to earn a little _kleos_ before the fields of asphodel come calling.

And then. Of course. There’s one other thing.

Another partygoer, still present, just as uninvited as he was, does not swirl her wine. Not quite her style, _swirling,_ unless the object in question has a minimum of one sharp edge and one pointy end. She’s here to mingle, to smile, la di dah, pay no attention to her lack of escort and cuirass of a gown, it’s all good. Everything’s _great,_ especially her in a minute. She’s not Carmine Zuigiber, not here and not now, but someday soon ( getting sooner all the time ) she’ll take up that name and wear it with the idle consideration of a light jacket in the chill autumn morn, biding time until that noonish warmth when she may discard it for something a little more _fitting._

If Crowley’s contribution to the coming storm may be equated to a butterfly’s, consider her a great grey cloud thrumming thunder and brewing lightning, the one which gives all the other clouds the courage to also arm up on the bolts and drums in order to do what they’ve been wanting to do for ages now, aka _go to fucking town_ on one another.

( Ultimately, this was coming regardless of butterflies or lone dark clouds.

But that’s never stopped Head Office from sending the commendations, now has it. )

**Author's Note:**

> 1 You may be wondering how a conflict so mired in the mythology and politics of those Greek fellows up on Olympus could possibly come to fruition in a world wherein the Judeo-not-yet-also-Christian God was the one to snap existence from the primordial watery waste and into something a little more terrestrial, rather than Uranus and his whole brood of musical chair heirs. The answer can be found in the fourth stanza of just about every iteration of the theme song for _Mystery Science Theater 3000_. [ return to text ]
> 
> 2 Rhyta (sing. rhyton) are a kind of wine cup which is often shaped like an animal’s head and usually designed as such as you could not put them down without them immediately tipping over and spilling on the floor. Above and Below both claim credit for their invention, citing adverse effects they presume the cup has on one’s alcohol consumption. [ return to text ]
> 
> 3 The problem with being a creature who is capable of sensing all vice and no virtue who has additionally not undergone the character growth necessary to really judge humanity beyond that cursory rotten glance is that you conjure up mental metaphors that really do edge that close into grimdark territory. [ return to text ]
> 
> 4 Even if Paris were sober enough to remember this conversation in the morning, he and Aeneas were never friendly enough to chat about such things as the characteristic snake eyes of Carthaginians, which in turn is why Aeneas never wondered why Dido’s were a perfectly lovely human shade of dark brown instead of slitted yellow. [ return to text ]
> 
> 5 Never mind that Crowley has only been drinking the same wine as everyone else in the tangential sense that dark chocolate is the same as white chocolate. [ return to text ]
> 
> 6 Being the Serpent of Eden had more perks than Crowley ever actually realized, one of which being that lots of folks thought he knew what he was doing - or better and more false, was doing anything at all. [ return to text ]
> 
> 7 While the framework of the Arrangement has been etched into the foundations of their spirits, it is still so far grooves in the stone which they more or less pretend is just the natural incline of the terrain.  [ return to text ]


End file.
